I don't think that's accurate. Not thinking the Rockets will win 50+ isn't the same as thinking there's no chance to win 50 games.
When the rest of the league wakes up and realizes there is no Yao and no Artest, things will change. Wait until they make Ariza have to drive to the basket. Won't be pretty.
This. Hollinger and the experts weren't totally off base with the anemic Rocket offense predictions, we're pretty much reliant on 3 pt shooting, with Scolandry and AB's slashing our only viable scoring option otherwise. Right now we're winning games but that's mainly due to our hot 3 pt shooting what happens when AB, Battier and Ariza have horrible shooting nights? Get ready for a horrible scoring night ala Charlotte Bobcats. My only hope is when that happens our defense is enough to compensate for it.
Aren't you being a little homerish here? I'm on the Rox bandwagon as much as anyone (we only really lost Artest from what we had last season IMHO, but i consider Ariza an upgrade), but of course we're gonna look good when our shots are falling. We take more shots than most opponents and 3 pts are worth more than 2 pts. You don't have to be a numbers geek to see we are 100% dependent on our three point shooting-hot 3 pt shooting is like gas for our adelman system. If our 3 pt shooting is hot then everything flows, it prevents zone defense and you can get nice points with slashes to the paint, uncontest mid range shots and backdoor cuts and ball reversals. However screens and spacing can only do so much. Once our players get cold you'll see the 70 Mill hole our roster has right now. Calling Hollinger an idiot when has made several valid points is you just being terribly biased towards the team. Who knew AB would learn how to run an offense, Hayes would learn how to score and Ariza would continue the 3 pt shooting barrage he had last year(which was a career abnormality previously)? You hope those things would happen, but those events had the same chance happening as Tmac and Yao both coming back 100% this season.
Well, it's only FOUR games. It really is unrealistic to expect this kind of shooting to continue. If we continue to have this kind of sucess in January, that's when we can start thinking about possible playoff runs.
its not like our shooting has been at astronomical numbers. we got open looks in utah and made about half of them. plus we have GOOD shooters on this team. Battier, Budinger, and Ariza are all above average 3 point shooters. Brooks also has the range. We actually dont have any sub par 3 point shooters on this team. Lowry is probably our worst 3 point shooter who actually takes 3s and he only takes about 1 a game. We also have very smart shooters. Rarely do we take a contested shot beyond the arc.
45% from 3 point range isn't astronomical? For reference, Phoenix was the best 3-point shooting team last season, at 38%. If we can still perform this well once teams get enough of a scouting report on our players' strengths and weaknesses, that's when I will be convinced that this is a strong offensive team. Until then, I'm simply praying that we can keep this up.
i totally agree that were winning because of our hot shooting but i also don't think its unrealistic to think that we cant continue to perform this way for the remainder of the season. we have good shooters guys, and our agent zero is the real deal. Brooks is a top 5 pg, i played the position my whole life including a little juco ball and trust me, ab is playing about as good as you could ask your point guard to play. he's not forcing any shots and he's playing within the flow of the offense. yet he's still scoring at a very high rate and he's creating at least five easy lay ins a game and for all you saying teams will adjust and scout us different and you may be right about some of the other players that are performing better than expected but every coach, assistant coach and gm in the NBA new AB was gonna be our focal point this year. rockets fans be happy that we have such a stud playing the point for us and root and cheer for this team. were going to be very competitive this year and that will result in a lot of wins. I love my rockets PS: AB is the real Agent Zero
This might be the single most erudite forum post that I have ever read. I'm a big John Hollinger fan, but I was stunned to see his PER prediction for Aaron Brooks before the season began. That being said, maybe it's because I don't watch a whole lot of college basketball, but Aaron's ability to effortlessly get his teammates involved (whether it results in a credited assist or not) has been a pleasant surprise to me. I had him pegged for around 17ppg and 5.5apg this season, but he's making it look easy right now distributing the ball. Another thing I didn't expect was the lack of consistency that Scola has showed so far, and you could chalk that up to his ankle, but I think there's a more telling factor at work... the fact that there are no stars on this team has been well documented, but no one's really stressed that Rick Adelman is now free to substitute as he sees fit without having to worry about minutes for guys. Luis has been on the bench for long stretches when Landry has been effective and I don't see that changing. At least until this point, Rick doesn't seem to want to play Carl and Luis together until foul trouble forces him to. Additionally, as skilled as David Anderson is (yes, yes he got pushed around in Utah... did you expect differently???), you can safely assume that he's going to be "on" some nights and take minutes from Carl and Luis as well. The mantra for the year: find the right guys who are "on" and ride them to a win or die trying... enjoy it
You just simply cannot measure this teams heart... I mean, in the playoffs last year after Yao went down, we had the same guys on the court basically, including Artest who played hard but he really didnt flow well in the offense as we all know. We simply took the core and made it better! Brooks and Lowry are gritty lil quick guards who love to run and push the ball. Scola is shifty inside and has a nice mid range J, Battier is being more assertive and driving more, surprisingly, and as always he has his set up 3's from the corners... Hayes is even being more aggressive to score and the big factor has been Ariza, he is a 6'8" wing who can score and he actually has settled down and doesnt try to be the man... he plays relaxed and good things happen for him... Aside from those guys, Landry, Anderson are solid contributors and Budinger, the dude is the steal of the draft! Athletic and crafty with a beautiful shot! Im not going to be predicting a Championship season by any means but, I am going to enjoy these guys because as fans, all we can ask is that a team goes out and earns their paychecks by playing hard and giving us something to cheer for... I love this team and I love cheering for them. No really big ego on this team and it is fu to watch a cohesive unit on the floor at all times. Like Ric Bucher said from ESPN, the Rockets are like a "5 man symphony" on the floor.
